Telangana Congress to launch special drive to attract jobless youth

Hyderabad, September 19 : The Congress is all set to launch a special drive to make unemployed youth of Telangana vote for the party in next Assembly elections.

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) President N. Uttam Kumar Reddy is giving final touches to a unique campaign wherein the Congress cadre will reach out to unemployed youth through both online and offline mode. “The Congress party has already promised that it will create lakhs of jobs, both in public and private sectors, if it wins the next Assembly elections. We will also give Unemployment Allowance of Rs. 3,000 each to all jobless youth. Through a focussed campaign, we want to convey this message to each and every jobless youth of Telangana,” he said.

In the initial phase, the Congress party is planning to reach out to at least 10 lakh out of nearly 30 lakh jobless youth. “So far, almost 19 lakh youth have done One Time Registration with the Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC). However, only 11,629 posts in various departments have been filled through the TSPSC which is just 0.6%. Therefore, over 99.4% of educated and qualified youth are still jobless. Although Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao had promised to fill 110,012 vacancies in 2014, the TSPSC had issued notifications for just 33,276 posts during the last four years and only 11,629 have been filled. These statistics clearly show the gravity of situation. Congress party will reach out to all 99% jobless youth and assure them they would be taken care of if Congress party is voted to power,” said Uttam Kumar Reddy.

The TPCC chief said that the unemployment scenario in Telangana was highly alarming. About 10.58 lakh candidates have applied for just 700 posts of VROs. While the minimum education qualification was class XII, the applicants included 372 Ph.D. holders, 539 had done M.Phil, 1.5 lakh of them were post-graduates and 4 lakh candidates were graduates including 2 lakh engineers having a B.Tech degree. Similarly, over 5.69 lakh youth applied for 9,355 posts of Junior Panchayat Secretaries. “This shows that there are simply no jobs for highly qualified graduates. KCR Government did nothing to tackle the rising unemployment in Telangana. There are nearly 2.5 lakh vacancies in various departments and other corporations of State Government. No efforts were made to create jobs either in public or private sectors,” he said.

According to ‘Unemployment in India – A Statistical Profile’ prepared by the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), Telangana had the third highest rate of unemployment among graduates in India. Similarly, he said in the India Skills Report (ISR)-2018, Hyderabad and Telangana did not figure in the list of ‘Cities with highest employability’ and ‘Top-10 states with highest employability’ respectively.

“Based on inflated and bogus figures, KCR has been boasting of Telangana achieving a growth rate of 17.17% in the last four years. However, he is silent on the unemployment rate among the Telangana graduates crossing 21.23% in 2017. According to the report of the Skill Map India 2017 by Aspiring Minds, Telangana has just 3.47% of jobs available in India and it stands at the 7th position in India with 56.66 jobs on the availability of the jobs measured on per lakh of population,” Uttam Kumar Reddy said while adding that TRS Government completely neglected the jobless youth. He said the situation would turn from bad to worse in the coming years with thousands of fresh graduates joining the list of unemployed youth every year.

Uttam Kumar Reddy said that Telangana became a reality due to the struggle and sacrifices made by students and youth. However, they faced only disappointment under TRS regime. “The next Congress Government will come up with a comprehensive plan to create lakhs of jobs every year. The previous Congress Government had initiated Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) project which would have created over 50 lakh jobs so far. However, TRS Government did not pursue the project and both TRS and BJP Governments have contributed in taking the unemployment level in Telangana to its peak. Thousands of industries and small businesses were closed leading to loss of lakhs of jobs due to demonitisation. But KCR’s love for PM Modi overshadowed the concern for jobless youth of Telangana and he supported the BJP Government’s insane move,” he said.

“If you need a job or at least Unemployment Allowance, connect with Congress party,” is likely to be tagline for Congress party’s special campaign.